Woodruff will close at end of year

After more than seven decades, the city's North Valley will lose its only high school. After an hour and a half of heartfelt pleas by students, teachers and other community members not to close any school, the District 150 School Board voted narrowly - 4-3 - to approve a recommendation to close W...

By DAVE HANEY

Journal Star

By DAVE HANEY

Posted Sep. 22, 2009 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 22, 2009 at 9:00 PM

By DAVE HANEY

Posted Sep. 22, 2009 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 22, 2009 at 9:00 PM

PEORIA

After more than seven decades, the city's North Valley will lose its only high school.

After an hour and a half of heartfelt pleas by students, teachers and other community members not to close any school, the District 150 School Board voted narrowly - 4-3 - to approve a recommendation to close Woodruff High School in lieu of a last-minute proposal that also put Peoria High School up for possible closure.

The change, to consolidate the school district and bridge future budget deficits, is to take place in June, the end of the current school year.

Board President Debbie Wolfmeyer, Vice President Linda Butler and members David Gorenz and Laura Petelle voted "Yes" to close Woodruff. Board members Martha Ross, Jim Stowell and Rachael Parker each voted "No." A similar motion to close Peoria High School failed to make it to a vote.

"I'm just disappointed. I still believe there are other options. This is so final," Thomas said afterward. "It makes me sick to my stomach . . . I just wish there could have been a better way."

The evening was full of emotion. Many could be found outside embracing one another or shedding tears.

Your Turn

"What is your reaction to the District 150 School Board's 4-3 vote Monday to close Woodruff High School, beginning with the 2010-11 school year?"

"They needed to do this with a plan. I don't think they had to close a high school."

— Drew Barnes, 40, Peoria

"I think it's very sad that we had to come to this. I think it's just another way of the School Board taking the easy way out."

— Moses Praul, 52, Peoria

"I'm crushed. I'm disappointed. When I go to Woodruff tomorrow to work, I don't know what I'm going to do when I walk in the door."

— Judy McDowell, 60, Peoria

"We just have to come together as a community, stick together as a family and be there for one another in this hard time."

— Joshua Pollard, 20, Peoria

"I didn't want to see any school close. No winners tonight. I feel the School Board did not involve the community enough. They gave us an opportunity to talk (tonight), but I wanted to be able to sit across the table from them and I wanted to engage them in some dialogue."

— The Rev. Mark McConnell, 46, Peoria

"They're closing Woodruff - I know that's going to be hard for me. But they closed one of my (grade) schools and I got over that. I got friends at Peoria High, Richwoods and Manual. We're still family."

Page 2 of 3 - — Arsenio Davis, 22, Peoria

"It just hurts knowing I can't graduate as a Warrior. As a senior (in 2010-11), it will be hard to adapt to new people and to everything."

— Wenoke March, 17, Peoria

Spanky Edwards, a Peoria High graduate, gathered outside the administrative building with students after the vote, calling on fellow Peoria High students not to rejoice in the decision and for Woodruff students not to give up.

"No school needs to close . . . you kill the community when you close a school," Edwards said, also urging they try to raise the money needed to keep Woodruff open.

That would take deep pockets. Closing a high school is expected to save upward of $2.7 million annually. Most of the savings would be through staffing reductions.

Even so, district officials admit they need to address its "structural imbalance."

High school population among the four high schools has held below 3,900 students the past three years, a far cry from the past. The entire district is at about half the population it was in the 1970s, yet the district continues to operate nearly the same number of schools.

And just before voting whether to close a high school, the board adopted its 2009-10 budget, which includes an overall $7.9 million deficit. While some specific areas, such as tort and bond and interest funds, will be covered through positive fund balances in those areas, there remains an estimated $1.4 million deficit in the operating budget.

"If we cannot get our finances in order, we're never going to be able to invest in our students," Gorenz said, noting the decision to close a school did not come easy but was necessary.

Many agreed on the need to consolidate high schools as well as a need to remain fiscally responsible to taxpayers, Butler summarized, noting "there is no vote that will make everyone happy."

While Ross agreed the number of high school students suggested the district did not need four high schools, she called for reorganizing grades to avoid closing a building.

"A neighborhood school is very important to the neighborhood," she said. "I'm talking about keeping a neighborhood in place."

Before the meeting, Petelle said she'd even received threatening phone calls.

So, now what?

There are no formal plans currently in place for the building or students.

Initial plans by district administrators show Woodruff to be used in conjunction with Lincoln Middle School as a pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade campus. School board members, however, have voiced opposition to having the high school building used by young children.

Talks also suggested that Woodruff could be used to house an alternative high school and vocational technical school, two new programs District 150 officials have proposed. But Superintendent Ken Hinton said last week both those ideas entail hiring staff members, something the cash-strapped school district may not be prepared to do.

Page 3 of 3 - "Right now, given the finances, I don't see any use for it," Hinton said last week.

District 150 has employed Jeanne Williamson, a former assistant superintendent for Peoria and recently retired superintendent from Dunlap School District 323, to draw up plans for high school consolidation.

Hinton said Monday night that students and their families should know where they are to attend the next school year by high school orientation in February or March.

While Peoria High may have the capacity to hold all the students from both high schools, district officials have said they are not planning to squeeze nearly 2,000 students into that school next year. That means the district will likely redraw attendance boundaries for each of the three remaining high schools, sending some additional students to Richwoods and Manual high schools.